1999 Abstracts

B. Tripp, “Tales in Black and White: The Two Faces of 19th-Century Abolitionist James
Redpath”

Throughout history, societal taboos or events have often placed restrictions on the
public expression or professional activities of certain groups, requiring writers
to use a name other than their own. However, for James Redpath and many others in
the 19th century, the different identity was a necessity. This veil of secrecy had
been a ploy to safeguard their lives or to establish credibility for themselves while
affording them the opportunity to speak out during blacks' struggles for freedom and
equal rights. This study examines the role of Redpath, who not only wrote as a white
abolitionist, but also assumed the persona of a black male in order to address a black
audience and offer a voice during the antislavery movement.

To Liberator and National Anti-Slavery Standard readers he would be John Ball Jr.,
a young, free-born black man from Iowa. To readers of the Boston Daily Traveller,
the New York Tribune, and numerous other mainstream newspapers, he was “Jacobius,”
“James Redpath,” or several other pen names.

Redpath established his goal as one to "aid the slaves," no matter what. He declared
that if he found the slaves to be contented with their condition, he would spend his
time in the South “disseminating discontentment.” But if the slaves were “ripe for
a rebellion,” he resolved to prepare the way for it.

He would become one of the first journalists to practice the brand of participatory
journalism so prevalent 100 years later. His plan: to make several forays into slaveholding
states to talk to the slaves himself; and to provide an eyewitness perspective on
their condition. However, the correspondence he would send to the abolitionist and
mainstream newspapers would be representative of white, as well as black, perspectives.

When the Associated Press severed its telegraph lines to the South six days after
the surrender of Fort Sumter, the newspapers of the Confederacy were left without
any cooperative arrangement for news gathering and distribution. Southern editors
immediately recognized that a new system had to be devised if journals were going
to provide readers with timely news of the Civil War. After several failed attempts,
editors established the Confederate Press Association in March 1863. The PA, as it
often was known, was beset with problems, including an uncooperative Richmond press
and the loss of key newspapers over the course of the war. Still, thanks to an aggressive
superintendent and a core group of dedicated members, the Association managed to serve
the basic needs of the South's readers for news of the Civil War.

The persistence of Southern editors in finding a mutual arrangement for sending and
receiving telegraphic news from the war was a clear signal that the journalism practiced
in the region was changing from the old partisan practices that had dominated newspapers
for so long. News was beginning to replace opinion as the main emphasis of the South's
newspapers, just as it had decades earlier in the North. Moreover, the organization
and practices that guided the work of the Confederate Press Association for two years
foretold the shape of cooperative news reporting after the Civil War.

G. Bush

In the post-Civil War South, freedmen who could read cringed when newspapers described
them as inferior and editorialized about whites’ God-given duty to hold blacks down,
even by the most violent means. Bitter whites commonly wrote about the need to kill
blacks to keep them in their place. At the same time, the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist
groups began functioning as military arms of the Democratic Party. This paper looks
at the role Democratic editors played in inflaming this terrorism.

Racist whites feared “herrenvolk democracy” – black suffrage, equality, farm ownership,
insolence, armed blacks, and mostly the perceived threat black men posed to white
women. The Klan and their editor allies also attacked “scalawags” – white Southern
Republicans – and “carpetbaggers” – white Northerners come south to befriend freedmen.
Many supported Klan terrorism and even the murder of blacks. Assaults were commonplace.
Newspaper-sanctioned riots in Memphis and New Orleans ended with scores of blacks
murdered. Editorials also supported economic sanctions against voting blacks and their
white allies. A few newspapers adopted new names, aligning themselves officially with
the KKK, and some used their pages to issue violent threats.

Early historians supported the Klan, blaming Reconstruction violence on the Union
Leagues, organizations seeking black suffrage. In the 1930s scholars began taking
a more realistic look at violence.

Officially the war had ended, but in fact it continued. Newspaper responsibility for
the crimes is clear. Had Democratic editors acted more responsibly, hundreds of lynchings
might not have occurred, the South would not have remained an economic, political,
and social backwater for another century, and black progress would have come much
sooner. Rarely in American history has the power of the pen been greater; never did
it have more tragic consequences.

Hazel Dicken-Garcia & Giovanna Dell’Orto, “Coverage of Three Censorship Episodes Involving
The Baltimore Press Journalists’ Discussion of Freedom of the Press in Civil War Newspapers
in 1861 and 1862”

This paper, about censorship in one city during the Civil War, is part of a larger
study that asks how the First Amendment right of freedom of press and speech has been
treated in relation to "hated" ideas at given times in history. What have journalists
defined and sought as press and speech freedom rights? What limits have they said
were appropriate? Have those changed over time? With special interest in what free
expression principles might have been articulated, especially for "hated" ideas, in
any such discussion among journalists surrounding the most suppressed newspapers during
the Civil War, coverage in eleven newspapers of three censorship episodes in Baltimore,
MD--September of 1861 and February and June-July of 1862--were examined as a case
study. It was expected that, because Northern journalists would support the Union
government and Southern journalists would support the Confederacy—as functionalist
theory suggests--press rights of the opposition would likely be subordinated, ignored,or
denied.

Findings show that, while a few journalists from both sections referred to a press
freedom that seemed broad and robust, press freedom was hardly treated as universal
or broadly applicable. The six Southern newspapers reflected the strongest disapproval
of censorship—almost always about Northern suppression--and, while the Northern journalists
gave less attention to censorship issues, journalists of both sections showed little
tolerance for ideas they "hated."

Judith Knelman, “Attitudes to Marriage The Subtext of Coverage of the Maybrick Case”

This paper looks at press coverage in the U.S. and in England of the controversial
trial and punishment of Florence Maybrick, with a view to discovering whether unease
about the ongoing renegotiation of women's rights in marriage at the end of the nineteenth
century hardened male attitudes against her.

The tremendous news value of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the magical allure
of the name Custer make the topic an excellent vehicle for studying the state of the
American press in the mid-1870s. This paper attempts to add to the existing body of
knowledge of this era by examining a source that has hardly been studied in depth
in the voluminous scholarly and popular writing on Custer and the Little Bighorn:
Kansas newspapers.

Previous research has suggested the American press was moving toward political independence
during the 1870s. This study concluded Kansas newspapers split along party lines in
their coverage of the battle. Most Kansas newspapers were Republican and tended to
attribute Custer’s defeat to his own rashness. Democratic Kansas newspapers tended
to blame the Grant administration for stationing troops on Reconstruction duty in
the South instead of on the Frontier. The study also compared coverage in the Kansas
press to that in the Texas press and found that Kansas newspapers, while partisan,
were generally less vehement than their Texas colleagues in their written attacks
on both their political opponents and Native Americans. A number of Kansas editorials
expressed sympathy for the treatment of Native Americans at the hands of the government
and argued that the battle could have been avoided if not for the greed of white miners.

Kate Roberts, “Media Coverage of First Ladies: A Quantitative Analysis of Indexed
New York Times Coverage of Wives of U.S. Presidents, 1853 – 1997”

As a portion of a larger study about media coverage of U.S. First Ladies, the purpose
of this paper is to discuss how the amount of press coverage of First Ladies has changed
across history. The focus of the research was to compare the 19th Century and 20th
Century coverage amounts to locate any commonalties between and amongst these time
periods. While the research indicated there was more newspaper coverage of each of
the First Ladies in the 20th Century, a few in the 19th Century received substantial
amounts for the times as well.

Counts were taken from the New York Times Index to obtain the coverage amounts each
president‚s wife had received from 1853 (Jane Pierce) through 1997 (Hillary Rodham
Clinton).

The primary research question posed for this study was: How much newspaper coverage
did each president‚s wife receive? From there 19th-century coverage amounts were compared
to those of the 20th Century to discern coverage amount norms for each of these time
periods and identify which First Ladies deviated from these norms.

The main hypotheses investigated in this paper are -- a) The amount of coverage that
First Ladies receive will increase across the history of the position. b) Of the coverage
given a First Lady, most will occur during the years that she is in the White House
functioning as the wife of the president while he is president. c) There is a correlation
between the number of years that a woman holds the position of First Lady and the
amount of press coverage she receives.

In general, the amount of coverage of First Ladies increased across history, and most
of the women received the most coverage when they were in the White House. Most cases
show a correlation between the number of years a woman held the position of First
Lady and the amount of press coverage she received, but there were exceptions.

Les Sillars, “STILL ANOTHER HORROR! A Study of Death in 19th Century Newspapers.”

It is generally accepted that toward the end of the 19th century many newspapers became
increasingly sensationalistic to attract readers in a fiercely competitive market.
However, this is not the whole story. This study analyzes the attitudes and worldviews
of 19th century newsmen toward death. It argues that early in the century some journalists
interpreted fatal events in a theological and philosophical context that allowed them
to make moral assessments about the deceased and their conduct and to draw from the
events lessons about right and wrong. These newsmen did not shy away from gory detail;
on the contrary, such details only strengthened the message. This tendency was still
apparent in a few of the large independent dailies that arose in the middle of the
century, but by 1900 many journalists had largely abandoned the theological framework
of their predecessors. Without a context that provided meaning to death, the bloody
red “particulars” turned yellow on the page.

When the Civil War began, South Carolinian William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) lost
access to his New York publisher. However, he revised two old manuscripts, placing
them in 1863 in Richmond weeklies--the Southern Illustrated News and the Magnolia
Weekly. Both were up-dated by allusion to military, historical or social events of
1863. Simms understood the effective use of serialization and was able to maintain
his audience's loyalty by using allusions to war events and descriptions of the superior
Southern culture.

Benedict Arnold is important for revisiting Simms's theories of dramatic license and
the relationship between history and art. More interested in dramatic effect than
in wrenching the history to the polemics of the day, still Simms pointed out that
Southerners have lost "faith in Northern Historians. . . . their Arnolds, and their
Putnams were traitors . . . . Their historians are of a piece with their generals."

Paddy McGann is significant for its social commentary on North and South and its well
developed Southwestern humor format. Its theme of Southern Nationhood has three segments:
man's inability to fathom God's will; comparison of North and South; and the assumptions
of Southern home life. Paddy McGann "chronicles the disintegration of the idealized
Southern social order," according to critic Dye.

Besides dashing his region's hope for independence, Simms's personal catastrophes
during the war were so frequent and so grave that he believed that Fate was chastising
him, but he held fast to his faith that God and endurance in public work would make
him stronger. Simms's only new war-time publications were overlooked for more than
a century--and one remains unpublished except for its ephemeral periodical appearance.

P. McNeely, “Francis W. Dawson: Dueling with the Code of Honor”

As South Carolina struggled to overcome the destruction caused during and after the
Civil War and to regain law and order, Francis W. Dawson traded his Confederate sword
for a pen at the News and Courier in Charleston, S.C., where he began a new battle
against the state’s most debilitating sins: whiskey, gambling, dueling, lynching and
hip-pocket justice. Dawson, who once wrote that he “could wait a century patiently
to have one more blow at them (Yankees) before I die,” did not move seamlessly into
his new role as the state’s champion of law and order. Described as a man who still
“had the smell of battle about him,” Dawson served as a “best friend” for Henry
Rivers Pollard, editor and publisher of The (Richmond, Va.) Examiner, in various duels
and fistfights and had challenged others to duels before moving to Charleston, S.C.,
in 1866.

This paper is a study of the practice of dueling in South Carolina, particularly as
it affected editors in the 19th Century, and Dawson’s anti-dueling editorial campaign
which culminated with the passage by the General Assembly of a tough anti-dueling
law in 1880. As a result, murder charges were brought against a duelist for only the
second time in South Carolina’s history. Even though the duelist was found not guilty,
Dawson’s efforts moved Pope Leo XIII to confer knighthood on the Charleston editor
for his anti-dueling campaign. Dawson is believed to be the only newspaper editor
ever so honored. The honor was ironic considering the tragic and bizarre circumstances
in 1889 that led to the murder of the unarmed Dawson by a doctor, who was found not
guilty by reason of self-defense. This is a discussion of the ultimate and ironic
final effect of Dawson’s editorials when the mob who gathered to lynch his killer
voluntarily disbanded after they were reminded of Dawson’s anti-lynching editorials.

This paper is a case study of the reporting of the 1831-32 cholera pandemic by four
Virginia newspapers. The pandemic was a major event of these years in which this
disease, almost unknown in Europe and the United States before that time, killed about
100,000 people in the two continents, at times killing 5 to 10 percent of the population
of large cities in a few weeks. This study examines the breadth, quality, timeliness
and sources of the cholera coverage, as an example of the communications network
that informed people about the world outside their local communities. The case study
details how these newspapers used the newspaper exchange, letters from correspondents,
direct reports from health offices around the country, advise from physicians, and
the editors’ own reporting to inform their readers of the approaching catastrophe,
and to provide public services to help their communities and individuals prepare for
the disease. These “modern” newspaper functions occurred after the expansion of the
Post Office in carrying newspapers but before the communications revolutions of railroads
and the telegraph. These newspapers were what I have termed the “pre-penny press,”
i.e. relatively expensive, small, semi-weekly newspapers that had changed little in
style and format since the early National period.

The four sample newspapers are the Richmond Enquirer, the Norfolk American Beacon
(the Beacon), the Lynchburg Virginian and the Fredericksburg Virginia Herald (the
Herald). The Enquirer and its editor, Thomas Ritchie, were well known nationally,
and the paper was considered an example of the political party press (representing
Jackson’s Democracy). The Beacon was a commercial paper in the only port of the state—Norfolk—and
it explicitly eschewed partisan coverage. The Virginian was also a political paper
(representing Whigs) whose editor, Richard Toler, was an important Whig booster and
later politician, in the relatively new, small, and expanding town of Lynchburg.
The Herald was the oldest paper of the group in a town that was long settled and losing
population. These four towns represent a cross-section of the settled parts of mid-Atlantic
states in terms of size, economy, political status, and growth, and their newspapers’
approach to covering the pandemic was similar to other newspapers outside the four
major Eastern cities.

S. Bird, “Partisans or Protesters?: A Glimpse at the Danville, Virginia Civil War
Press and Its Handling of the Yankee Prisoner Issue”

This research proposed that editors of the south prior to and during the Civil War
were more than mere fire eaters, partisans and defenders of state’s rights. In researching
a community of small papers in southern Virginia, this paper uncovered a side to southern
editors mostly overlooked in traditional journalism history. Editors in Danville,
Virginia were concerned about the relocation of Union prisoners to their town, the
effect of prisons on their town and its citizens, and the fate of 6,000 Yankees who
suffered through horrid conditions, hundreds of whom perished and were buried in what
is now a national cemetery. Further, Danville editors were interested in public policy
regarding the prisoners and encouraged negotiations between the governments for prisoner
exchange.

Thorin Tritter, “Money Matters: Financial Structure in the Civil War Era and the
Dominance of the Big City Daily”

The Civil War profoundly changed American newspapers. On the one hand, shortages of
both supplies and workers, with the related increase in costs, forced many newspapers
to shrink editions or close up entirely. On the other hand, the war created an unprecedented
demand for news and those owners who found a way to continue publishing often realized
great financial rewards. But which newspapers benefited the most and what was the
key to their success? This paper looks particularly at New York City, the center
of America's newspaper industry, and argues that the largest dailies, because of the
financial structures they developed in the years leading up to the war, were able
to dominate the industry like never before. Significantly, their access to capital
during this key period helped make dailies, rather than weekly or monthly papers,
the main source for news.

Ed Smith, “The Tragic Figure of General James Longstreet in The Killer Angels: A Story Retold in Chattanooga”

In the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of historical fiction, The Killer Angels (1974), Michael Shaara provides a stirring blend of fact and fiction in which the
events and key figures at the Battle of Gettysburg are stunningly brought to life.
With the license of the novelist, Shaara the historian views the events through the
eyes of the characters and allows the reader to see into the hearts and minds of these
real human beings whose actions are recorded in history. I will include many passages
from the work to illustrate the powerful portrayals of these characters. While I have
attempted to edit and consolidate for brevity, admittedly many are rather lengthy
based on my desire that you appreciate the literary skill inherent in these portrayals.

Debra Reddin van Tuyll, “Mary Boykin Chesnut: Portrait of a Reader”

Wealthy South Carolinian Mary Boykin Chesnut provides an opportunity to examine from
a practical standpoint theoretical assertions made by several historians recently
regarding the reasons Southern women, particularly those of the planter class, turned
to novels and other reading materials during the Civil War. In this case study, it
appears that the model reader suggested by Cathy N. Davidson -- young, unmarried,
middle or lower class, from New England -- does not fit Chesnut. However, models
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Drew Gilpin Faust do accurately describe Mary Boykin Chesnut
and her reading habits. Fox-Genovese and Faust suggest that women turned to novels
to help them understand their societies, their places within their societies and to
help them prepare to cope with coming challenges.

Shortly after the Civil War, journalists began revisiting sites of battle and reporting
on conditions. These reports comprise a curious, hard-to-classify literary genre of
war remembrance and reportage. This research compares three contemporary personal
narratives about the Civil War: Emory Thomas, Travels to Hallowed Ground (1987) Jerry
Ellis, Marching Through Georgia: My Walk with Sherman (1995) Tony Horwitz, Confederates
in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (1998)

Encountering history is a central objective in each work. The writers tell their
stories within the narrative structure of journeys. Their journeys are undertaken
quickly, leading to impressionistic drive-by history. Although each book is journalistic
in nature, the writers bring different perspectives to their projects. Horwitz, a
journalist, has won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Thomas is a distinguished
historian, and Ellis is a travel writer and adventurer.

The books become journeys of self discovery as well as reports about the modern South.
Wherever the Civil War has left “ghost marks on the landscape,” the war still has
a significant impact on culture, ethnicity, politics, regionalism, education, and
tourism. History, in these reports, is something more than a journalistic gloss on
contemporary affairs; history matters. The writers struggle to explain the complex
mythology of Southern identity. School of Journalism

Coverage of lynchings became a "staple of journalism" in the 1890s. Newspapers regularly
ran stories of mobs who executed those allegedly guilty crimes, mostly African American
men. Ida B. Wells of the Free Speech, a black newspaper in Memphis, investigated mainstream
newspaper coverage of lynchings. Through her inquiries, she found that newspaper accounts
often conveyed inaccurate or misleading information. Following her investigation, she launched an anti-lynching campaign and determined
to influence U.S. press coverage of lynching. According to Wells, the lack of debate
and condemnation of lynching by white newspapers only supported and encouraged the
practice of lynching. She intended to undermine society's justification of lynching
by seeking to alter how the press covered lynching. Though Wells readily reached readers
of black newspapers about the horrors of lynching, she initially was barred from conveying
this message to the audience of mainstream newspapers. After accepting invitations
to lecture in England, she ultimately sparked coverage in white newspapers in the
United States of the debate about lynching. While much of that coverage of her antilynching
efforts tended to be negative, nonetheless Wells managed to attain a forum in general
circulation newspapers.

This study examined lynching articles in selected mainstream newspapers during the
initial years of Ida B. Wells's anti-lynching campaign from March 1892 through 1894,
after she had returned to the United States from her second lecture tour in England.
Analysis of reported lynching incidents and antilynching efforts in the selected mainstream
newspapers revealed a subtle shift in press coverage and public attitudes about mob
violence. Coverage expanded beyond merely reporting lynching incidents to including
articles that covered controversy fueled by Wells's antilynching efforts.

Nancy Dupont, “OUR ALL IS AT STAKE: MISSISSIPPI NEWSPAPERARGUMENTS AGAINST SECESSION”

From the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 to the meeting of the Secession
Convention in January 1861, Mississippians participated in a debate over the wisdom
of secession. South Carolina left the Union on December 20, 1860, so the sense of
urgency in Mississippi became even more strongly felt.

As the only mass medium of the day, newspapers carried the burden of arguing the merits
of secession for readers throughou t the state. At least three of the thirty newspapers being published at the time
took strong anti-secession positions. Their writings help historians understand the
depth of anti-secession sentiments, whether they were strictly pro-Union or were advocates
of delaying secession until all Southern states seceded en masse. The anti-secessionist
newspaper writings also demonstrate a strong degree of courage since they were far
outnumbered by pro-secession organs and were frequently attacked for their views.

Though the secessionists prevailed and Mississippi left the Union, the anti-secessionist
newspapers proved to be prescient in their forecasts of doom. They had predicted
civil war, and war came. They had predicted economic hardships for Mississippians,
and the hardships came. They sensed that the secession decision was a defining moment
for the state, and indeed it was.

The Rev. Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, a Congregationalist minister, wrote In His Steps,
a best-selling novel in 1887, and gained international recognition. This novel depicted
ordinary people who were inspired to change radically by asking themselves, "What
would Jesus do." In the novel, a newspaper editor applied that question to his business
and altered his advertising and editorial policies to conform to standards he believed
Jesus would practice. In 1900 Sheldon was invited to become that fictional newspaper
editor and edit a daily newspaper from March 13 to March 17, 1900. This research examines
the way Sheldon's approach to journalism formed a web of meaning for his audience
that reflected his worldview. For six issues, Sheldon spread his vision of good, evil,
and the path to restore the world to a heaven on earth. His six signed editorials
are used to explore Sheldon's vision of the world during a time in America when the
social gospel was popularized in melodramatic novels such as In His Steps. While Sheldon's
work is often seen as amateurish, his newspaper pioneered some conventions that are
commonly used by the modern American press.